IPL 2018 Fantasy Guru: What your team should look like for KKR vs RCB

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Kolkata Knight Riders

Prediction – Mid-table finish

X-Factor – Chris Lynn

Most runs – Chris Lynn

Most wickets – Kuldeep Yadav

New kid on the block – Shubman Gill

Fantasy player preference order – Chris Lynn, Kuldeep Yadav, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine (if he opens)

KKR’s problem this season is not their lack of depth, as is being projected. IPL is not like one of these football leagues that runs for an entire year and has closed transfer windows. It is only a two-month tournament, which provides you with an option to replace injured or unavailable players whenever the need arises. Developing depth should be the last thing you should worry about in such case.

KKR were attempting to completely rebuild their squad, and you can’t do that with a lot of above average players. You need a select set of exceptional players around which a team can be brought up, and that is what they attempted to do with Chris Lynn, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell and Mitchell Starc, but they missed a trick by backing a problematic set - Starc and Lynn with a history of injury troubles, Narine with action issues and Russell coming back from a lengthy layoff.

This depth argument seems to suggest that by merely managing to get backup options for these players at the auction, this team would have looked a lot stronger on paper. It can’t be more flawed. You can’t have Kagiso Rabada as a backup for Mitchell Starc; backup players are backup players for a reason - they are of a quality lower than the ones who are preferred to play ahead of them.

In a tournament like the IPL, you can buy the backup grade players at any point in time. KKR have proved that by bringing in Tom Curran as a replacement for Starc – Curran is as good as any of the reserve options teams have this year.

This way, they have also entertained the possibility of their first-choice, A-grade player being available. Had they straight away concentrated on depth, they could have ended up with two players who are neither here nor there (read: B-grade players).

They could surely have been better by backing a different set of A-grade players, though. Moving on, their first XI this year has match-winners in Lynn, Kuldeep Yadav and Russell, and a solid support unit in Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Narine, Curran and Nitish Rana.

The likes of Shubman Gill, Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shivam Mavi may not be IPL-ready yet, but sit tight on them for a couple of years and they could give you a strong Indian core for the years to come. These are the calculated risks you need to take while building a franchise.

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Prediction – Top 4 finish

X-Factor – An in-form Quinton de Kock

Most runs – Virat Kohli

Most wickets – Yuzvendra Chahal

New kid on the block – Pavan Deshpande

Fantasy player preference order – Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar

RCB have an interesting conundrum right at the top of their batting line-up – there are as many as 8 possible opening combinations that they can choose from.

Brendon McCullum-Parthiv Patel

Quinton de Kock-Parthiv Patel

Brendon McCullum-Virat Kohli

Quinton de Kock-Virat Kohli

Brendon McCullum-Quinton de Kock

Manan Vohra-Parthiv Patel

Virat Kohli-Parthiv Patel

Virat Kohli-Manan Vohra

Then they have Mandeep Singh, who is an opener as well. If RCB’s past is anything to go by, they are likely to start off with Brendon Mccullum and Parthiv Patel as their opening pair – a combination of reputation picks and cliched thinking.

With that opening combination choice sealing the No.3 and No.4 spots, No.5 is where their next tussle is at – they have three options in Sarfaraz Khan, Mandeep and Pavan Deshpande. Given Kohli’s preference for fitness, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sarfaraz being ignored again in favour of Mandeep.

What it should be: Virat Kohli, Quinton de Kock, AB de Villiers, Sarfaraz Khan, Colin de Grandhomme, Manan Vohra (floater), Chris Woakes, Pawan Negi, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Umesh Yadav

What it will be: Brendon Mccullum, Parthiv Patel, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, anyone, anyone, Chris Woakes, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Umesh Yadav, anyone.

Either way, they have Kohli, de Villiers and a gun spin bowling unit – which is good enough to help them seal a playoff spot. From then on, they need to hope these two departments make up for their mediocre bunch of pace bowlers.

Fantasy Zone

Subs used – 1; Subs remaining -73*

Rohit Sharma out – Virat Kohli in

(Uncapped) Shahbaz Nadeem/Mayank Agarwal out – Kamlesh Nagarkoti/Shubman Gill (if he opens) in

Captain - Virat Kohli

*contrary to what was mentioned in the last article, Shane Watson is not to be swapped with Jaydev Unadkat, but with an uncapped player (either Shahbaz Nadeem or Mayank Agarwal)

Season team ahead of KKR vs RCB: C Lynn, E Lewis, V Kohli, S Dhawan, KL Rahul, C Morris, K Gowtham, K Yadav, M Markande, B Kumar, K Nagarkoti/S Gill